Musings on Economics, Finance, and Life

Is the United States the Best Place for Women?

Women in the United States have the best quality of life of any developed nation, according to the Better Life Index recently released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The index combines eleven different measures of wellbeing, including health, education, income, and life satisfaction. Australia gets top honors for overall wellbeing, but U.S. women top the rankings (women in red, men in black; you’ll probably have to click to read this chart):

Any such index rests on many assumptions and value judgements, of course. So kudos to the OECD for providing a completely interactive version of the index. If you don’t like the way they combine the eleven factors, you can roll your own index and see what happens.

Among other things, that allows you to drill down on each of the individual factors the OECD considers. The “life satisfaction” element reveals that the United States is an outlier in another way: the disparity between women’s life satisfaction and men’s:

Korea has the largest gap, with women reporting much higher satisfaction than men. The United States has the second largest gap, with women noticeably more satisfied than men. (But do note that by this metric alone, the United States is not the best place for women–several countries are higher.)

If you like data, interactive graphics, and international comparisons, you’ll probably enjoy putting the OECD’s Better Life Index through its paces.